DAY 105: She's Back

At long last, Mom's personality is emerging.

She moved to the intermediate unit this week, which was a breakthrough in itself. She's off the ventilator entirely, although the tracheotomy remains in her throat for now, just in case. She's beginning to eat real foods in small amounts. She wants to get the feeding tube out of her nose ASAP, and we've explained to her that she needs to eat enough real food first, so she's working on that.

The big news, though, is that she's talking a lot. Anybody who knows Mom knows that joking is a big part of who she is. Just this week, she started joking again.

For instance, Emily was feeding her some apple sauce last night and she formed her mouth as if she was going to spit it in Emily's face. Em backed away quickly, and we all braced, then Mom broke into a smile and laughed. Here's the scene right after:

She still drifts into delirium at times, as when suddenly one morning this week she seized my hand and said, "grab the bed rail and shake it quickly."

"What?" I asked. "Why?"

"Hurry up! Do it."

I shook the rail as instructed. "There," I told her. "I shook it."

A satisfied look came across her face and she said, "There was a dead bug in there."

I inspected the floor beneath the bed and inside the hollow tubes of the rail itself to satisfy my curiosity. There was no bug, of course.

Another time, she said that it was important for me to make everybody go home.

"Who?" I asked.

She pointed out the door of her new room. "All those people out there. It's too loud. Tell them I'm trying to sleep."

I passed that along to the nurses and other patients, but nobody saw fit to leave.

One thing that seems to have helped get Mom away from the bizarre comments and into meaningful conversation was reading to her. She loves animals -- it was a horse that put her in the hospital, after all -- and she's a fan of James Herriot's books. Emily and I have been reading to her from All Creatures Great and Small, which she loves. Here I am reading to her one morning this week:

This stage of Mom's recovery is very moving. It's another chance for all of us to get to know Mom. She's back, but she's different. It's too early to say for sure, but she seems softer around the edges than before, a touch more serene.

Her voice is frail and nasal. She begins many of her sentences with an introspective "well," followed by a gathering of her thoughts and then a response. That response is often correct.

Emily asked if Mom knew why she was in the hospital. She said yes. She described a horseback ride and said she'd fallen. It's not clear if she really remembers, or she remembers us telling her about it over the past few months.

Emily asked, "Did you get hurt?"

"Well," she began, a far-off look on her face. She turned to Emily with an expression that said she was about to state the obvious, and said, "it put me in the hospital." We all laughed.

Yesterday morning gave me two of the finest hours I've ever spent with my mother. She had me doing little pointless tasks, and I had a ball doing them. Move the pillow here. Lift up that corner of the sheet. Move her legs left, move her legs right. Make sure the sink is turned off. Check to be certain that it can turn on.

Through it all, we were laughing and I later realized that she was playing around. She knows that she's still not entirely aware and that she says silly things, but she's lucid enough to use it to her advantage by pretending to be delirious when she's not. I finally called her on it. "Just keep doing your jobs," she said, smiling.

She asked me to brush her teeth, which was not a meaningless task. As I brushed, she told me that it felt good, so I ended up brushing away for more than twenty minutes. She lay quietly. Her breathing eased into a rhythmic pattern. We were both lost in thought while I brushed. In that moment, she grabbed my hand firmly and looked into my eyes.

"I gotta get through this one," she said. Her eyes held onto mine in a way that's never happened before. I could see deep in their olive green the determination and fight that has sustained her in these long months of silence.

"And you will," I told her.

Here I am brushing:

What a moving experience it is to care for my mother. What a privilege. How often does life present such a chance to make a small deposit toward what can never fully be repaid? How many children find themselves pondering later in life all the care that came from their parents, and feeling somewhere inside that they didn't show enough appreciation? I may still feel that one day, but these days I'm just elated to be here for the person who has always been there for me.

This frail woman unable to brush her teeth gave me a sense of humor that has sustained me through dark moments. She's the life of the party, and taught me the joy of that role. She did all of the traditional motherly duties of cooking, cleaning, and caring, with a style that was uniquely Liz Kelly.

It wasn't all good. What ever is? Her children inherited from her a stormy set of emotions, prone to volatility and turning on a dime. Kelly family anger comes quick and hits hard, but it subsides equally quickly and holds few grudges. Mom has pushed buttons across all members of our family. We've all had our moments with her.

I suppose that's what makes these days with her so wonderful. She's alive, she's coming back, we'll have chances to go through it all another time. Here are the boys joking around with Daniel's hat on Mom's head:

That's our fun Mom!